ICT and Education Sector

Education industry is one the fastest developing sectors in the world and Indian education sector happens to be the most lucrative of the lot. There has been a tremendous revolution in ways of disseminating knowledge and information within educational institutions. More and more academic institutes are opening doors to welcome the advancement of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Recognizing the advantages that ICT can bring in, there has been a rising demand and desire to adopt latest ICT tools to impart education through a novel and innovative approach.

Coming to the interactions taking place within the educational sector, communications technology can do wonders in facilitating better connectivity amongst all stakeholders involved such as students, faculty, management, parents and other peer institutions and relevant organizations. Automation of the entire cycle of interactions can make it more manageable and orderly. A centralized repository that would store the relevant information and be available at a single click would help reduce time and efforts that was earlier too cumbersome on manual handling of processes.

Today’s students are more tech-savvy and wish to procure information regarding colleges and schools through various medium of communication. IT solutions have changed the way communications take place by leaps and bounds. SMS, live chat, web callback, and phone call, all of these have been made possible through the interactions solutions that help the institutions in maintaining a competitive edge in the world.

The focus and priority of software developers have been to develop and implement innovative and scalable solutions that can cater to the education field. Integration of technology with the educational system, initially a major obstacle has now been overcome and effectively translated into gains. With a view of reusing existing hardware/technology to build path breaking IT solutions has contributed to the growth and progress of the industry and the country as a whole.

• Previous years’ footfall
• Audience segments
• The sponsors (previous  and current)
• Participation of prime competitors (which should make it all the more important for your company to participate)

Based on these criteria, one can categorize the numerous events as – customer-specific events, networking-specific events and events that can help in creating brand awareness among peers. Coming to the definition of these categories –

• Customer-Specific Events are those that attract an audience which fulfill the necessary pre-conditions of being a prospect for a company. An event of this kind can bring-in direct business value as marketing of products/solutions reaches the right audience.
• Networking-Specific Events draw business leaders from relevant companies to a single platform where they can communicate, indulge in brainstorming sessions and panel discussions related to products and market dynamics. Such events can be a great source of networking and enlighten leaders about the product/solution that one wishes to market.
• Exhibitions and Showcasing Events enable one to create brand awareness through direct display of products or solutions.

With the event types, importance and objectives clear, the main task of gathering information on all events and actual short listing begins. The event info mining process takes you through various websites like linkedin and other social media platforms, websites of various industry associations and also on tech news portals.  After gathering the details, it is important to register them into centralized event calendars for reference as well as execution.

But, is the job done post this? What about the right representation from the company? By representation I mean, networking events would require some senior management representative from your company; preferably the business head. Similarly, customer specific events where direct marketing is happening, good oratory skills are a must. For exhibitions, a blend of pleasing personality, marketing as well as sales skills would suffice.

With the above ‘To Do’s’ noted and done, you are ensuring a sustained presence of your company as well as offerings within the industry circles. Your business is reaching the right audience via the right platform.

I would be tagged by the travel and tourism company as a ‘dissatisfied customer’. Working in the domain of communications technology for quite some time, it was disheartening to see that businesses are still following the traditional methods and in the process, losing out on customers. In an age of automation, communications software are available to manage such cumbersome processes, eliminating the possibility of errors or latency. Yet, there still exist certain travel portals that are happy without considering such solutions for their businesses.

In a typical hospitality business, the interactions mainly consist of bookings, telemarketing, managing packages that involve sight-seeing and accommodation and inter-house communications inside large chains of hotels. These interactions can take place across various communications channels such as phone, web, SMS or even live chats.

In an age of internet and online travel portals, the web has become an extremely important customer touch point and needs to be integrated into the overall contact strategy both in the form of capturing the interest of incoming customer traffic and also as a mass reach-out tool. A communication solution that can integrate multiple channels like phone, email, SMS, web etc. and help deliver a personalized experience to the customers is the need.

The right solution ensures optimum customer satisfaction and guest experience. But the question is ‘HOW’?

The solution helps in self-service to manage the incoming customer queries and telemarketing to attract new customers and generate businesses. With high-end automation, it streamlines the haphazard interactions taking place. It intelligently routes the calls to agents with the expertise to offer attractive deals and hampers in addition to resolving their queries. Powering the businesses, as a back-end support, the solution ensures 24×7 availability, hence, eliminating the possibility of a ‘lost or dissatisfied customer’.

Such solutions are fast becoming a way to differentiate their services from the competition. Hotels, travel agencies and travel portals are realizing that software solutions, integrated call centers, and mobility can help improve their guests’ experience, increase staff productivity, reduce costs, and drive new revenue streams.

The good news is that leading travelling companies have already benefitted much from next-gen IT technology and created a customer base that is loyal and also a propagator of their services. Quite contrary to my bad experience, they have gained much from the word-of-mouth publicity from their satisfied customers. This, itself has brought them great business and continues to do so. I am urged to say in the end that communications technology has gained new heights and businesses must make use of such solutions in order to ensure growth and progress.

We have indeed come a long way from the times of Edison and Graham Bell, who started the revolution of making the world a small place. If not for them, you would still be reading this on a papyrus or goatskin at best!

The ever changing nature of technology is what pushes the boundary of acceptance for us mere mortals. What was standard once, becomes a footnote in the next page of technological evolution.

Take Legacy systems for example. You ask, what are legacy systems? Why are they called legacy?

Simple. A type of technology which has been outdated by something Faster, Smarter, Better (I quote so at the risk of Vodafone suing me!). This is especially true in the IT segment where innovations are the order of the day.

Earlier, we had machines replacing men. Now, we have more efficient machines replacing other, older machines who have not been able to keep up with the ‘times’. Having said that, it is not easy for CIOs and IT decision makers to simply scrap their existing platforms every time something new shows its face. This constant cycle of change does tend to weaken the business value of said legacy systems, which have been developed over a lengthy span of time, with considerable investments going into them.

Market research shows that even though cost-effective technology and services are available today, yet nearly 80% of IT operations still rely on legacy technology to get their work done. International Data Corp. estimates that 200 billion lines of legacy code are still in use today on more than 10,000 large mainframe sites. The difficulty in accessing legacy applications is reflected in a December 2001 study by the Hurwitz Group that found only 10% of enterprises have fully integrated their most mission-critical business processes – According to a study done in 2001.

Monolithic legacy architectures are often challenged and superseded by more modern SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) and MDA (Model Driven Architecture) based systems, such as Ameyo. Legacy systems execute business policies and decisions that are hardwired by rigid, predefined process flows, making integration with customer relationship management (CRM) software and Internet-based business applications torturous and sometimes impossible which is where modern technologies have an upper-hand. 

In conclusion, Legacy systems are but a major hurdle in the ever-changing world of IT, especially the Contact Centre Industry. The vulnerabilities and complexity of legacy solutions are simply no match to the latest and greatest of IP, VOIP and Cloud based technologies who have slowly but surely claimed their ground and continue to do so. In a world where any technology becomes obsolete in the blink of an eye by something which not only better equipped at handling the same task  than any legacy applications, but also is able to churn out results at a much faster and efficient pace, Legacy is a dying and soon to be extinct breed.

One of the most significant steps in making a business successful is the origin of partners. A business partner can be a supplier, a customer, an agent or reseller or a vendor of complimentary offerings.

Now, let me define Partnership. Partnership is basically an alliance with other companies or their channels that specialize into same kind of related services or products. Then again there are different levels of partnerships that can be defined according to your business requirements. The levels of partnership can be either on commission basis or for sharing leads. Most of the companies classify the levels as Silver, Gold and Platinum depending upon the commissions or services offered.

Partnership as the name suggests is a hand in hand process which allows businesses to expand, target new segments, make new offerings, pitch  to new customers and make a presence in the market.

Companies nowadays are focusing more on being reliable Business Partners. The reason for this is that businesses believe that instead of focusing on physical assets and economies of scale, the drivers for success reside in connectivity and intangibility. Businesses need to develop and manage complex organizations around themselves so as to succeed.

Teaming up with other complementary solution providers you are able to provide the complete solutions to the customers. Thus, it results in expanding of business more quickly and efficiently. The benefits that are offered as a result of business partnerships include:

• Providing complete solution to enterprises
• Expanding networks
• More leads and areas to work upon
• Business Development
• Business Expansion
• Relationships with Customers as well as companies
• Improved productivity and intangibility

In the end I would conclude that businesses have evolved during last few decades and sharing and hence expanding business opportunities via partners is the need of the hour. It not only provides you with monetary benefits but also ensures long term profitability for the enterprises.

It has been over a few years since the pan India National Do Not Call (DNC) registry went into effect. From the time of its inception till today, there are over 15 crore numbers on the list, with more being added every month. Of all the listed phone numbers, more than 30 percent are now covered under the list in India and growing at a steady rate.

Brainy pundits have duly suggested and equated this trend to writing a final obituary for telemarketing which of course has changed the industry dynamics. But has the industry really died……hmmm not yet, at least not in the eyes of telemarketing professionals who have taken this legislation in a healthier context. With ill-practices getting weeded out the time is highly opportune for doing ideal telemarketing culminating to an ideal sell.

Industry trends have shown that businesses doing telemarketing have comprehensively added to their revenues over the years consistently. For standalone telemarketing this number would not be that significant, but there is no question about the enormous impact the medium has had on the business ecosystem.

Using and executing effectively, telemarketing has allowed businesses having the direct marketing concept, to emulate as closely as possible the one-to-one sales advantage bringing them closer to customers. But this has its own pros and cons.

Telemarketing efficiency depends purely on the immensely large number of contacts reached via an outbound campaign which has become difficult to sustain in the present regulatory scenario in an industry which is also being marred by existing high turnover. There are about 1300 entities (outsourced / in-house) identifying themselves as telemarketing services provider to the sector as per TRAI (nodal regulatory agency in India). These service providers deliver more than an estimated 100 crore outbound calling hours per year for business operations.

While some telemarketing processes are aggressive reach campaigns, others are more mature and controlled form of establishing customer contact with both falling into business-to-business and business-to-consumer categories.

Indian firms invest an estimated INR 10,000 crore in outbound telemarketing generating INR 60,000 crore in annualized business value. This again is a downfall from the prime time of telemarketing in the mid 2000’s, when single businesses were recording double digit growths in customer acquisition.

Another roadblock to the growth of telemarketing industry has been the introduction of Do-not-Call registry and the subsequent regulations. Post this, the business has shrunk further, even though the regulations are not that stringent as of now and businesses have been given enough time to adjust. In fact, DNC regulations do not take the blame entirely, the affected business is the result of both regulatory and market forces. The DNC lists, as well as the revised telemarketing sales rules, have forced businesses to restrict calling activity. Firms who were heavy users of outbound telemarketing until a few years back have significantly mellowed down to prevent legal logjams.

The regulations related to Unsolicited Commercial Calls or UCC prevention has forced the telemarketing companies to employ a more focused outbound strategy rather than blind dialing on a mass scale. Also there has been significant shift of marketing spends from vanilla telemarketing to a more robust, sustainable and composite strategy of going the multi-channel way of customer reach-out which has the potential to drive the prospects to inbound call centers.

Even though deliberations are still ongoing on the effectiveness of regulations on outbound telemarketing and its upcoming demise, businesses have adopted innovative strategies to meet their ROI goals. These include – transferring customer sales calls to a sales call center for cross-selling, Internet and e-mail marketing to generate immediate leads and also by only calling those who are not on the DNC lists.

To conclude, even though it’s a highly hated term, the fact remains that telemarketing is here to stay and that too as a very effective marketing channel for businesses. The idea is to understand that its profitability does not come with the power and ability to “push” not-needed products, but from the ability to offer the right products and services to the right customer at the right time.

Defining the customer cycle we get four primary stages – suspect, lead, prospect and finally customer. The suspect stage is when a company defines a target segment that can possibly be future customers.  This segment consists of suspects. Once an initiative to establish contact is made, the suspect matures to a lead stage. Upon reciprocating with some interest in the product on offer, the lead becomes a prospect or prospective buyer of the product. This is the point where maximum pre-sales efforts happen and aggressive convincing is required to further push the prospect to a customer stage.

As noted by various sales people the probability of a prospect backing out at the last minute are about 70% greater than that of creating a lead from a suspect base. And in the end conversion rate would always be calculated from the prospects that were turned into customers. A major portion of sales efforts is taken up by this stage only. The transition from this stage can be made smoother with introduction of innovative marketing tools.

By an effective marketing tool, the only thing that comes into my mind would be a tool that is able to convey to the customer, the key benefits and features of the product. Breaking down boundaries with a technology-resistant population can be hard, specifically if they’re forced to read pages of technical documentation, or dial-in to a support line whenever they want assistance.  A well-executed visual presentation permits them to review instructions at their own pace, put up their queries as and when required and re-go to challenging spots as necessary. Product demonstrations can do wonders to marketing strategies and initiatives. No amount of text can ever be equated to a visual demonstration of the product. Shooting fancy words or an eloquent usage of language skills is unmatchable to the impact that a live moving image can create.

Software companies often make use of engaging, dynamic tools that accelerate the sales process in the shortest span of time. Live Demos guide users by way of the product’s operation with step-by-step visual instruction and content that caters to their personal computer skill level. These demonstrations supply an engaging way to familiarize your user-base with the functionality you provide. Moving images coupled with sharp and precise content becomes a ‘wow’ package to leave a long lasting impression in the minds of the audience. Targeting and customizing the product demonstration as per the customer turns out to be a boon as it engages a prospect and articulates the value of the solution directly.

The demonstrator must be charismatic and possessing an in-depth knowledge of the product. A live session that is interactive, interesting and appealing leaves the audience completely fascinated by the presentation. A crisp and precise demonstration is always easy to be presented and is devoid of repetition, thereby keeping the audience glued to it. Clarity of voice along with good presentation skills produces overwhelming response and a promise of future undertakings.

Now demonstrations can vary from being an on-site demo, to showcasing a presentation on a public platform, to web demo which is facilitated through screen sharing and lastly, demonstration done at the premise. A meeting between a prospect and the business team of a company leads to a request for an on-site demonstration where the solution vendor happens to visit the prospect with the whole set up to be demonstrated at the prospect’s site. Next is an opportunity wherein the vendor finds a way to exhibit the product on an open platform, addressing to a large crowd that majorly comprises of a target audience. Then, comes a technology-based, largely popular way of product demonstration made possible through the use of web and made accessible through screen sharing. Lastly, a demonstration on-premise also proves to be lucrative in cases when the solution provider is able to present the product demo effectively and comfortably.

With product demonstration evolving as an excellent tool for marketing, one thing that remains certain is that the content of any marketing tool must be charming and attractive. In order for a demo to create a long lasting impression on the minds of the customer, the content is majorly responsible for the same. One can upgrade the demo for the existing customers to up-sell their existing product to a higher and costlier version. The buyers must be presented with innovative and interesting showcasing of product so as to ensure maximum numbers of repeat customers.

After the grilling telephonic rounds, I had almost lost the hope of being selected. But to my surprise I was called in for the internship program at Drishti.

Following the age old myth, even I had imagined a slogging environment where office hours extend to over 16 per day and hardly any ‘life’. And considering my struggle through the interview process I would not be considered wrong in expecting the same in Drishti.

Now as the most brilliant minds research on a problem, even I did my share by simply taking the advice of my seniors . They said – “Without thinking twice, join Drishti.” I thought – “Okay! What is it about Drishti that makes them say so?” But anyways, rather than continuing my confused state, I decided to go ahead and finally let Drishti be my mentor!!

Now if I go into a quick flashback, I come to the start of my NIT days. I had a vision or let’s say a dream of becoming a successful developer. Fast-paced technology environment was my idea of exciting work opportunity. But was this new company going to give me this?

Well, yes it did!

Drishti was everything opposite to the myths of IT companies- a cool work environment, extensive learning and the very latest technology concepts to work on. I was very happy when I was allotted a live project to work upon using JAVA frameworks. I had never worked upon these technologies in my college so the task was really challenging and as usual I was very excited to learn.

Even after being a fresher to the domain, the team never let me feel alien to it. In fact the particular incident which I would term as ultimate grooming for any intern would be when I was allotted a project to work on. Now I was required to explore different possible approaches to the problem and deliver a solution. I said – “How would I be able to do it?” And the answer was – “That’s for you to find. You have to submit it by the end of this week.” I thought without any experience and training I would not make it.

But how wrong was I? To my surprise, I did find my way, made my own share of mistakes and learnt many new things. I had only read about Enterprise JAVA as a concept and never actually worked on it and here I did my project on this! And then I came to know that all along, my project manager was watching over each step I took. Now this is what I would call mentorship! Rather than spoon-feeding me he prompted me to find the bug and kill it!!

The teaching and assistance of everyone would be missed by me as I go back.  

The other memories I collected include – Friday parties. Actually now I think, these were just a reason to celebrate and unwind and also our RnD team was always the first one to gather in the cafeteria for the party . Then I had a wonderful time on the Rishikesh Trip. Celebrating completion of a project, we all went for a rafting trip to Shivpuri and “had the time of our lives”! The enjoyments continued with Drishti Annual Meet where being a part of Team ’B’, we played together, fought for victory and exhausted our energies in whistles and hootings! Wow! What a place to be….

Completing my internship, now I can say that I made the right decision of coming to Drishti. It gave me the perfect base of understanding technology the way we could never understand as mere students. Drishti introduced me to thinking about applications not just as a developer but as a user.  It also gave me an example I would give to my juniors for a place where you balance work and play!

Besides all the learnings, I know that I’m am more confident and adept

And in the end, I would like to thank the complete Drishti team for making my internship a great success and an ‘AWESOME’ experience.

This all began around 2 months back, when I joined Drishti-Soft Solutions as Business Manager APAC. I was responsible for establishing Business as well as good brand name for Drishti. And then our marketing team comes up with this info on “1st Asia Communications Awards” happening in Singapore and our whole team was like “Yes” it’s a good platform to show the world that “Drishti” has arrived with the bang.

Our marketing team worked hard on filing a promising nomination and finally we were there “Finalist in Best Vendor Category Award” competing with some of the Industry leaders. We were bit skeptical about winning this award considering the competition, but as they always unless you compete you won’t win. So we were on with it and I got this honor of representing Drishti at the Gala Dinner Award Night @ Raffles Hotel, Singapore.

22nd of June 2011, it is here. I dressed up myself in my best Black pin-striped suite all set reach there. Ah!!! What a fabulous setting for the evening. I registered myself and got to table no. 15 and the feeling was simply superb sharing this stage with all the Telco giants and ISV’s. Joined by representatives from big Telco companies of Sri Lanka and Qatar our table was all set.

“LET THE SHOW BEGIN”

It all started with the Dinner, a classy one with welcome drink (Wine) and 3 course meal ( I must say food was terrible, I had to eat MC D’s burger later that night to curb my hunger). So, here the award ceremony begins. Everyone glued to the stage with their finger crossed hoping to bag one. Few guys got lucky this time and went with 3 awards and I was like next will be me on that stage with the beautiful trophy. Then the Voice Echoed

“This Award is for the Best Vendor Category – and the nominations are Drishti & Huawei. And I was all tensed and nervous looking at the stage “plz plz say Drishti” but then my hopes came crashing down “It was Huawei” and I was like “Damn!!”

We had come so close. Everyone consoled me with – “Better luck next time and all…”And I was carrying that fake smile, and then I talked to myself “DUDE! It took Huawei more than 2 decades of hard work to get this award.” Directly competing with them in itself is a big honor and recognition for Drishti!! And these awards are not going to define our success, But still next time I will be on that stage posing with that beautiful trophy.

This Experience is one of the most memorable one, to carry the baton of Drishti’s Success among the TOP Telco’s and ISV’s was simple priceless.

And our message is clear “We have arrived & we’re gonna Rock for sure” See you next time.

CHEERS

Puneet Sharma aka KC

I had always found computing and automation to be fascinating, especially how “machines” are able to integrate with humans and our daily lives, be it using a telephone to call some distant land or sharing a computer screen across seven seas helping someone figure out how to do their accounting!

My previous company was to be the pedestal in bringing me closer to technology, helping me take the first step towards a career in the then “haloed” Contact Centre Industry. A learning process from there on, the technicalities involved seemed to be overwhelming. SLAs and TATs, logs and traces, CDRs and Reports, they all loomed large and scared the living daylight out of me. Eventually, I came to terms with them. I had prided myself on being a fast learner which has never failed me, at least not yet. Once the understanding settled in, it was time for another plethora of activities: Implementations, integrations, pre-sales, account management, escalations and what have you! Every-time I had slightest bit of complacence, it was shaken out by something new and wondrous.

Then after a short stint with another IT company, came Drishti Soft Solutions, which changed my perception of what I was capable of. From being a technology specialist to entering the world of Sales (oh yes, you read that right!), I could see my horizons widening and my perception broadening. Beating a competition to win over a client feels very much like it would when you win a game beating your opponent, fair and square, of course. It’s a rush of adrenaline, cruising through your body, enveloping your mind and soul and it’s oh so sweet, the taste of victory. You have to remember, when you do succeed, the client not only invests in your company but also invests in YOU, the idea of YOU.

I have yet a lot to learn and definitely a lot to explore.  I look forward to the day when I can claim:

VENI, VIDI, VICI!